Meltdown

Good evening!  I haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I would this evening.  I'm awake and alert and it's a nice, slow night tonight.  Tonight's topic will be the humble meltdown in its many forms.


BASEBALL

Now that baseball season is in full swing (so to speak) and the juggernaut Blue Jays are well on their way to running the table after winning the first two games.  This brings to mind a few entertaining and rather extraordinary meltdowns that I've seen.  The first is from Brian Walker right here.

If this athletics thing doesn't work out for you, there is totally a career in acting for you.

Brian here is, or was, a catcher for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks and the video here shows the guy pretending to get hit by a pitch with some awesome, awesome acting.  When nobody buys it, he strikes out on a huge cut and then proceedes to lose it.  To me, this guy's just bizarre.  I mean, who does this?  What would posess anyone to fake getting hit by a pitch when there are cameras around and a whole bunch of witnesses.

Now, after seeing this, it probably isn't a shock that he didn't make it to the show, although interestingly enough, there are several people named "Walker" that made it to the big leagues, not the least of which Larry.  According to MLB.com, there was a Chico Walker, not one but two Dixie Walkers, a Gee Walker, Hub Walker, Rube Walker, Speed Walker, and my absolute favourite, Mysterious Walker.  Oh, and speaking of interesting names, the Dave Van Horn you see in this video is not to be confused with Hall of Fame broadcaster Dave Van Horne.  Two entirely different people.

Now this next one is my all-time favourite managerial meltdown: Phillip Wellman.

Oh no, don't hold back now.  Please tell me how you really feel.

I'm guessing he didn't like that call none too much.  I won't describe it beyond saying that it must be seen to believed.  Oh yeah, and he takes a bow at the end.  Say what you like about him, but he's a character.  The unfortunate thing here is that the Double-A Mississippi Braves fired him after the 2010 campaign and I think it's a safe bet that his managerial career is over.  I could see him doing commentary for Fox Sports, though.  I think I'd enjoy that.  Yes indeed.

Lastly, and I love this one, Hal McRae.

Gee whiz.  He sure looked a lot happier as a player rather than a manager.

I love this one mostly for its sheer visceral power.  He's not just mad, he's furious.  He's in a rage.  He's pissed.  He's throwing stuff, beating up reporters, and all on tape.  It's awesome.  And I remember him as a player for the Royals, too, back when I was a kid.  Let this be a lesson to you all, though: heavy is the head that wears the crown.  Although, as a sidenote, one of the things that I always loved about baseball is that, unlike all of the other sports, the manager is out there wearing a uniform just like everyone else.  I mean, could you even imagine Randy Carlyle in a Maple Leafs jersey?  Ha ha ha ha...

Hey!  It's MacGuyver!  Get his autograph!

...ha ha ha-  Oh.  Well, you know what I mean.  Oh, and just as a sidenote, speaking of Leafs and Meltdowns, I just thought I'd say that the Toronto Sun sure is a subtle publication, isn't it?

The funniest thing is the angle they have him at.  It's hilariously cheap!  And Burkie driving the bus!  I can't stop laughing...

Anyway!  Enough nonsense.  My baseball section seems to have veered away from baseball so let's get this bus back on course, so to speak.


BREAKING BAD

Not Beastie Boys.  Breaking Bad.

Man!  What a great television show.  I think it's a toss up whether Breaking Bad or...

The look on Tori's face: priceless.

...is my favourite (aka. the best) show on television.  However, Breaking Bad is in a category all its own, I think.  It's not the Sopranos.  It's not Boardwalk Empire, or Friends, or Dallas.  It's something totally different.  Ever since Episode One, Season One this show has been an exercise in tension.  It's like a very tightly wound pocket watch that slowly ticks down only to be cranked tight again at just the right time.  It's a slow burning fire.  It's a constant impending dread.  It's the most elegant meltdown I've ever seen on television.

Have you considered an exciting career in high school chemistry?

One of the central themes to this show is the feeling that there is this Pandora's Box.  There's this fight or flight decision that I think we can all relate to where we do something that we don't want to do but feel that we have to for whatever reason and we cross the line.  And once that line is crossed it can never be taken back.  Ever.  Every decision that we make, right or wrong, has been done and we all have to move forward.  In this case, Walt decides to take his knowledge and try to do the right thing for his family, but in doing so he crosses that line and there's no going back.  This show as much as any shows how just taking that first little step across the line can leads to full on meltdown further on down the road.  And there's no turning back.

Ominous.

It is really something to watch this meltdown happen and see things spin further and further out of control.  From one little seed that was planted, so many lives are getting sucked in and down with it.  Never mind that there are guns and drugs and other nasty things, this is some of the best and most well-made television that you will ever, ever see.

And the casting is pitch perfect from top to bottom.  I honestly didn't think Bob Odenkirk had this in him,

Breaking Bad, as much as anything else, is meltdown as art.


BLACK FRIDAY

Well, there are probably a lot of Black Fridays, but the one I'm talking about occurred on Friday September 24, 1869.  Oh wait, though.  Before I begin, some mood music.

Operation Grand Slam?  What does this look like?  A Denny's?  No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to order hashbrowns!  Idiot...

Yes, before there was Auric Goldfinger there were the real life evil masterminds of...

"Diamond" Jim Fisk

...and...

Jay Gould

Now these guys were some serious, serious bad dudes.  These two were a combined their experiences as smugglers, grafters, fraudsters, financiers, investors, bribers, railroad barons, and all-around cut-throat money men. Together, and with the help of political puppet-master Boss Tweed, they teamed up to corner the United States gold market.

This picture is a dramatization.  Not actually the gold being cornered.

I know!  It sounds sinister, right?  That's kinda what Goldfinger did, only through nuclear fallout instead of the good old fashioned method of corporate chicanery.  A modern day equivalent would like Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg getting together and going out one day and buying up gold.  Then more gold.  Then more gold.  That would drive the price of gold up thirty percent and stock prices across the board drop like a rock.  So then Obama gets worried and orders the powers that be to release some gold from the reserve to bring the prices down.  And did it ever go down.  Once the government gold hit the markets, the price of gold suffered a total meltdown.  Meanwhile, Fisk and Gould sold off their gold, aware of the impending crash and escaped any significant financial hard.  The rest of the marketplace, however... well, let's just say that they don't call it "Black Friday" for nothing.


NETWORK

Oh what I would give to see Peter Mansbridge do this scene live - or something similar.

Have you seen the film "Network" before?  Mmm?  Either way, whether you have or not, it's messed up.  Totally messed up.  To put it briefly, there's this evening news anchor who goes off his rocker and gets fired, but before he's done he has a total meltdown and gives a rant for the ages.  Live.  On-Air.  In front of millions.  At first they want to do the humane thing and just shut him down, but then once they see the ratings they realize that they can put this poor cracked son of a gun to work and milk his lunatic ravings for all they're worth.

At first it looks so campy and far-fetched given that the show was released in 1976.  And old man having his own show, clearly a cushion short of a couch and people just eat it up.  It seems too weird and cynical to be true.  Or is it?  Let's see...

Uh huh.

Mmhmm.

Uh oh.

Aw geez.

Yikes!

Alright, enough already.  Geez.  Yes, the movie was eerily prescient with its take on how brutal and manipulative the fame industry is, and in closing on this subject, one last old lamentable ranting man.

"I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance. You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit."

COMEDIANS

I thought long and hard about actually doing something about a meltdown, like at either Chernobyl or Three Mile Island or Fukoshima, but then I thought against it in a sort of "Nah, that's too easy" kind of way, so instead we get this list here.  Now, to finish it off here one last great meltdown: the comedian.

Herman J. Pennypacker: Wealthy Industrialist

So Michael Richards had a nice little run with his nice little spin off detective show after Seinfeld took its last, terrible bow, but after that bombed (as opposed to simply melting down), he went back to doing standup.  On November 17, 2006 while doing a set at the Laugh Factory some hecklers got the best of him and he lost it.  "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!"  And then he shouted "He's a nigger!" oh, I dunno, a bunch of times trying to explain himself to the audience like that's cool.  And he made reference to lynching.  Not good.  Not good at all.  However, the good news is that he was never seen or heard from again after that.  Well, more or less.  He retired from doing standup (woo!) and then went on a quiet to do some spiritual healing or some such nonsense.  Good for him.  Good for him.  Cause you see, if he couldn't handle a softball outfit like the Laugh Factory, there's no way he could handle the pressure cooker that is...

The two-man roast, sans heartfelt tribute.

And then there's this clown here.

And by "clown" I don't mean funny,  Sure, why not.  Let's get him with a cigar, too.

I won't belabour this one because it was already so expertly belaboured over the past year and, frankly, he's just not worth it.  Suffice to say that he melted down and I'm not so sure he's done yet.  Time will tell.  ...  I wonder if he's got an endorsement from Winners...  Anyway!  And now this guy.

Well, I got a cigarette at least.

Some have called this a meltdown, but I'm not so sure.  Sure, he took off to Africa to find himself spiritually, but unlike Michael Richards it didn't take a horrible embarrassment before he needed to do so.  Instead what it was was that he was offered $50 million to continue work on the Dave Chapelle Show.  And he looked long and hard at the $50 million and in the end he walked away from it.  Now that takes guts.  All kinds of guts.  Turning your back on $50 million takes huge guts, but he did it and that's impressive.  What I see here is not another comedian that had another meltdown, but rather a comedian with a crisis of conscience who followed his heard and said no to the lucrative contract so that he could remain true to himself - very similar to what this guy went through.

Finding him with a cigarette was easy, too.

And that took just as much guts to give up a roughly equivalent amount as well.  Although he wasn't very funny.  At all.  Yeesh.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I think I'll leave it here for now.  Thanks for reading and have a good night!